Paper Wishes
by may snow
Summary: "Sometimes I wonder how exactly I got myself in such a mess." OC Self-insert.


_**AT:: Hello, hello, potential readers! Before you begin scrolling down to get to the story I've gotta warn you – this is something very random. I was reading another self-insert recently and I've gotten so hooked on it that I'm here basically going "what the hell! why not?!" and writing this. I don't have any perfect plan or structure for this. I merely thought it might be fun to do my own take on the self-insert genre ( and I hope a decent shot at that ). So here I am now. If you do choose to read this and follow it I hope that we can have fun together! I do enjoy seeing reviews a lot /winkwink**_

_**Disclaimer:: I do not own anything related to Naruto expect my OC ( I guess myself? ).**_

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**ONE – (Re)Born**

"_You're doing great!"_

Sometimes I wonder how exactly I got myself in such a mess. Was I insane to begin with? Was the universe playing some oddly sick joke on me? Should I be crying or laughing? Back then I felt like I had died, though I wasn't sure of what. I was never the most religious person, yet to be honest I did hope that there could be a heaven or something similar to it. At least then I could still live on, spirit or so, at least then I didn't have to cope with the thought that once I'm dead I'm dead, a soul no longer, a final verdict. I secretly hoped that I could find myself in a quiet paradise, a place different but similar to the earth I knew, to meet the loved ones that fell before me once more and live forever there, where the human worries couldn't reach me. But I wasn't in heaven. This wasn't paradise. It was dark and suffocating. It was _frightening_ and at the same time so warm.

There was hardly a way to describe it properly. At first it felt like I was a child again under a thick blanket, in the comfort of my old bed. Then I realized I couldn't move. I realized soon after that I couldn't scream either and suddenly things seemed a lot scarier.

"_Keep pushing!_"

Slowly, I came to the third realization that I hardly knew who I was. Sure, there were snippets, moments and memories of my past life but it felt like it had these big gaping holes. It felt like they weren't mine to begin with. It wasn't the most comfortable feeling at that. If there was a thing as reverse amnesia then I guess I had it – I had all these memories, all this knowledge, knew so many faces and yet I couldn't even remember my own goddamn name. It was like I had stolen all that information and it did not belong to my body. If I could frown I would've frowned.

"_She's almost here!"_

I heard voices, unmistakably. They were muffled but loud enough to comprehend. That is, if I could understand them, which I clearly didn't. I heard them, yes, but whatever language they spoke in was foreign to me. Interestingly, it was also so familiar as well. I felt like I've listened to it before, many times before I died, but I couldn't pin-point what it was. It was like one of these holes from earlier, but this one I desperately tried to decipher. I wanted to know my location as soon as possible. These voices soon rose again and a sudden new wave of surprise lashed over me. _Is that… Japanese? Am I in Japan?_

But I didn't really get any time for questions though, because light spilled all over me, dulling my senses. It was a very weird feeling indeed; everything was blurred and I couldn't see clearly, couldn't move very well. Then little by little, things clarified and I began to recognize the fuzzy shapes as faces. They were holding me – they were like giants, big and human-looking from what I could tell. I didn't know what I should do. Their eyes, or at least I think their eyes, glazed over me and the corners of their mouths seemed like they were curving up. Were they smiling? I couldn't quite tell. Something in their expressions changed though, and while I couldn't understand their panicking voices my own body pointed to the problem. _I couldn't breathe. _This conclusion pushed away any other thought momentarily. I had the sudden urge to scream and cry and I didn't know why. I didn't know what was going on, I didn't know anything. I was _helpless_. I was completely and utterly helpless, and if I wasn't currently desperately trying to deal with my suffocation I would've been angry at how things turned out.

"_Why isn't she crying?!"_

_No. No. No._

I couldn't die. Not again, I couldn't die again. I already died once and that was more than enough for me. I was never the bravest person but this time I had to suck it up. I had to act. There was no way around it. With everything I had, I made one single motion. I_ screamed_. I cried like a baby. I twisted and wiggled and shrieked. Sweet air filled my lungs and began to sooth me down from my craze. I felt like I was being moved and handed to somebody and soon a calming warmth took over my body. Something wet fell on my cheek and on my forehead. I slowly raised my head and wearily blinked. There was a woman's face looming over me, but this one didn't scare me. Yes, my brain logically might have been frightened because _there's a giant woman holding me_, but my body was relaxed non-the-less. She was saying something that I couldn't understand, rocking against me and repeating "Hotaru".

She was crying. I felt my heart jump in pain. Why would she cry over _me_? Who was I to her to make her cry in such a manner? Did I know her? My head was filled with so many questions that it was beginning to hurt. What was even going on? Had I not died? Is this some kind of illusion? Slowly, all the facts began to glue together. Frankly, I've never thought of myself as crazy, but right then I did. I mean, wouldn't you think so too, if you had just convinced yourself that you have been reborn?

I hesitantly glanced up at the woman and a whole new round of questions raised in my head. My heart pounded again. Was she my mother? She was smiling so sweetly that I would bet all my money on it. Her fingers gently tapped on my nose and glided down my cheeks in such a loving manner that I swore I would've melted right there and then. She had stopped rocking me but the word "Hotaru" still remained on her lips. I had the feeling that that was my name. _My name is Hotaru. _I smiled. I would be lying if I said I didn't like it.

That's how I came to this new world, in such a fuzzy and unrealistic manner. I had been taken away into another room, carefully washed and placed in a wooden crib, left with only myself. There a tingle of guild built up inside. I knew that I wasn't supposed to be like these. It's like the universe had slipped up, left a crack somewhere - it was wrong and unfair to everybody but the thought that I was given a second chance was something that left me pondering for days. I was given a knowledge of the world, albeit quite messy and blurry, but I still thought like an adult. I was given the means to control my decisions. Too bad that I was never good at taking such decisions in my previous life anyway.

Honestly, I hadn't lived a hard previous life. My parents were good people, they raised me with care and love though to be fair they might have spoiled me a bit since I was their only child. I was never a genius but I never struggled with school either. I had friends but I wasn't popular by any sense of the word. I graduated and had a job. I lived a very normal life. It was a mundane reality and also one that I truthfully would've changed slightly, if I was given the choice. It was by no stretch of the imagination anything special but that didn't mean it wasn't a _nice_ life. Sometimes, though, sometimes late at night I would get carried away in my dreams. There I would be a hero, I would be respected, I would live a dangerous life full of adventure and excitement. That kind of world was something I kept a secret from everybody else. Call it a childhood dream of mine.

Later I would regret having such a dream. Later all I would dream of would be a safe and quiet world where I don't have to worry about my friends and family dying.

But that would come later. For now I was just a little baby girl, relying on her parents. _My_ parents. What a weird thought. For a while I didn't think that I could ever see those two people as such but as time went on I slowly did. They put so much care into their actions, they seemed to love me so much that even I cracked at some point if not out of pure guilt that their feelings might go to waste. The memory of my previous ones didn't wash away but I was more comfortable in thinking that I had two families. One was in reality and the other seldom visited me in my sleep, when I was scared or sad of this new world. They would sooth me and pat my head and they would make me truly feel like a child but it didn't matter. I could rely on both of them and the thought made me happy.

Time passed very fast when you were a baby. People often came to visit my room and there were times were those people weren't my parents too which lead me to the conclusion that I might have siblings. Still, this early on things were only ever blurry, no matter how much I tried to concentrate on seeing. There _was_ something weird, though, something I didn't remember having as a child. There was a warmth in my stomach that I couldn't explain. It was just warm and yet calm, sometimes it felt like there was a whole seas inside my body. When I was happy the sea would stay calm. When something disturbed me I could feel it pouring in my veins, forcing it's way inside and mixing with my blood. It hurt. I didn't like it.

As I grew I slowly learned things about the world I lived in. I had an older brother and sister. They were called Daiki and Emi, respectively. I guessed my sister was at least five and my brother ten, though there was no way to ask as I couldn't even speak. Another thing that I learned was that both my father and mother worked and they must've worked hard because a lot of the time I was left in my siblings care. Not that I minded. They seemed to love their little sister too, because they often took me out of the crib and played with me. They spoke to me in their language and I was slowly beginning to understand. It was nice. I felt genuinely happy.

By my first birthday I already knew a few words and knew how to form some sentences as well. It was a bit hard, considering there was another completely different language in my head, but I guess my body sunk everything in like a sponge. My first steps came sometime after. Why would that be important, you ask?

After I took those steps everything changed.

At first I thought that I had just been reincarnated into a baby in Japan. I considered that I was in the future, since maybe there was a cue on these things, but nothing really pointed to it. It never even crossed my mind that I would end up in another world. Everything felt so... real. The morning light felt so real on my skin. The scattered everywhere across my room toys looked so real to my eyes. The delicious smell of my mothers cooking lingered in the air just so realistically. It was all real and there and now and having to double check reality was a hard thing when everything was _so goddamn real._

I would've never really guessed it if my father hadn't pulled me away from my kanji lessons, saying that it was time to learn about the third thing necessary to every person. He said it's time to learn about _chakra_. I almost fell back when he said that. "What?" The words escaped my lips before I could stop them. They carried such a surprised tone that my own father couldn't help but chuckle, ruffling my hair and picking me up to carry me outside where we would practice for hours, trying to pull rocks up from nothing.

How stupid was I? How could I not notice the headbands? How could I listen to them so carelessly and not notice how much they mentioned "Iwagakure" or "Konohagakure".

I didn't really want to believe it. If I thought myself as mad before, this topped it by the thousand. Yet, all the signs that I was in fact reincarnated into the Naruto-universe were there.

It's safe to say that things only got more complicated from there.

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**So there you have it, the first chapter. I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I did writing it ( well ok, maybe more ). Bonus points if you caught the hints for her chakra nature and village. Things will probably pick up speed by the next chapter. This was sort of an intro, to easy myself into the topic mostly.**


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